From: wat? on
just curious if there is a setting somewhere that may make this printer
blend color to print black even when the black cartridges are nearly full.
I haven't print a lot of color, but the cyan and red seem to be running low
fairly quick as indicted by the printer monitor.
what does the printer monitor actually monitor? ink in the cartridge OR
number of time a color print is called for?
Thanks


From: MCheu on
On 11/05/2010 6:18 PM, wat? wrote:
> just curious if there is a setting somewhere that may make this printer
> blend color to print black even when the black cartridges are nearly full.
> I haven't print a lot of color, but the cyan and red seem to be running low
> fairly quick as indicted by the printer monitor.
> what does the printer monitor actually monitor? ink in the cartridge OR
> number of time a color print is called for?
> Thanks
>

Right up until the reservoir is empty, the ink monitor only reports an
estimate based on the number of prints and calls for that colour.
Based on my own usage, it doesn't seem to matter whether you printed
just a dot containing magenta or a whole page of magenta. That's why
the usage monitor will sometimes report half a tank, even when the
reservoir is nearly full. It'll keep on reporting that level right up
until the reservoir is empty, at which point, it'll give you a low ink
warning. The low ink seems to be the only report that's actually based
on a sensor rather than an estimate.

If you really want to know how much ink is left, you have to pull the
cartridge and look. Though, really, you only need to worry once the
low ink warning hits.

-MCheu